Rides: The bad kind of bianca

The plan today was to ride hard for an hour, doing repeats on Joy Road, a ribbon of rolling hills amid horse farms and McMansions in Washtenaw County. The unknown factor, though, was the snow. Before the ride, I envisioned myself hammering along, my ‘cross tires digging into the layer of white powder that covered southeastern Michigan the past two days. When I got to Joy Road, I found a bianca strada. Oh yeah, it was plenty bianca. The unfortunate thing was that it was the bad kind of bianca. There was no powder. There was just a hard layer of hard-packed snow with strong ambitions to become ice. This made the crowned roads a bit treacherous. If  I didn’t ride exactly in the middle of the road, I was riding on a slightly off-camber slippery patch. A few times I hit a weird rut and almost lost control. Instead of riding to get a good hard workout, I was riding not to crash.

When I got to the end of Joy Road, I didn’t turn around for a repeat, as I had planned. I took a right onto a paved road clear of snow. Scuttling my plans to ride the remote snow-covered roads was a disappointment, but there was no real good choice. I ended up riding on pavement for an hour, then doing repeats up a long hill near my home. It was a cold day, with highs at -4 degrees C and lows at -8 degrees C. It didn’t bother me much. My old self, the one that spent the past 10 years in the subtropics, would have froze his butt off. But I guess I’m finally getting used to the North.

Rides: Bonking while flirting with frostbite

Two hours into a ride yesterday that was only supposed to last 1.5 hours, it was becoming clear that I had worn out my welcome with Mr. Winter. My entire body felt wet, cold and clammy. It was as if I were wearing a wet suit and a layer of frigid seawater was trapped between my skin and the suit’s fabric. Most worrisome, my core was cold, and that meant it was trying to hog up all the warm blood and stop it from circulating to my hands and feet, which were numb. Even my trusty balaclava stopped fending off the cold and seemed to defect to the forces trying to shut me down.

I was still a half hour away from home, the sun was going down and I was beginning to worry. Adding to my problems, I had only eaten a light lunch (chicken noodle soup and rice cakes with a bit of cream cheese)  and didn’t bother to pack any snacks because I figured I wouldn’t be out that long. On a long ride in the cold, hunger doesn’t just knock. It tries to kick down the door.

I got myself into this jam because, well, I’m an idiot, of course. I was riding the dirt roads near my home in rural Washtenaw County and decided to explore some new routes that ended up seriously prolonging the ride. I also really wanted to do a long ride. I did one the day before and had a blast, even though it shattered me physically. The weather was sunny on both days, and that’s all I really need nowadays to motivate me to get outdoors. Temperatures ranged from -3 degrees C to 3 degrees C, which is wonderful for Michigan in January.

The ride ended up being 2.5 hours. I don’t have a distance because I haven’t rigged up a bike computer to my cyclocross bike yet. I got through the last half hour by staying calm and using the old trick: breaking down the ride into legs and just concentrating getting to the next leg. “OK, just make it to the horse farm and you’ll be OK,” then “Just get to Warren Road,” then “Just make it to Nixon Road,” then “Just cruise on home.”